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NEWS & LETTERS, October 2002
Anti-war tone in NY's September 11 memorials
New York--Anti-war New Yorkers marked the first anniversary
of the September 11 destruction of the World Trade Center with demonstrations
and vigils of a different character than those put on by the government. A march
and rally of some 2,000 people on Sept. 8, and an all-night vigil of several
thousand more on Sept. 10-11, were distinguished from the flag-waving events by
their calls that Bush not invade Iraq. As one sign put it, "We need a
'regime change' in Washington." There was also a demonstration for
immigrants' rights, Sept. 7, attended by a few hundred people and featuring
labor union representatives, as well as various pacifist church services around
town. The Sept. 8 event was a march from Times Square to a rally
in Union Square, the site where New Yorkers gathered spontaneously for weeks
after September 11. It was sponsored by the Left and youth coalitions that
sprang up soon after the tragedy to oppose the bombing of Afghanistan. In
addition to denouncing the planned war against Iraq, the crowd demanded Bush
stop aiding Israel in its attacks on Palestinians. The small turnout contrasted with the 20,000 who
demonstrated in Union Square on Oct. 7, 2001--the day the bombing of Afghanistan
began--demanding that any U.S. war be "not in our name." The amazing
anti-war fervor of that rally, which condemned both fundamentalist and U.S.
violence less than a month after the trauma of the attack here, was not built
upon by the anti-war movement. The movement narrowed itself to being solely
against U.S. imperialism, and by the time the war in Afghanistan ended two
months later, it petered out. From the start, there was little discussion of the
movement's principles or goals. Both old and young people alike assumed they
knew what an anti-war movement should say and do, and that was simply to oppose
U.S. imperialism. So they opposed U.S. war-mongering alone, and said almost
nothing about Islamic fundamentalism. Some anti-war coalitions around the
country, in their zest to condemn the U.S., even refused to mention the dead of
September 11 in their principles. By ignoring the very real victims of another
dangerous ideology of unfreedom, the movement cut itself off from sensible
people because anyone can see that the U.S. is not the only deadly force on
earth, and anyone can see that no one except the leadership of fundamentalist
regimes wants to live under the repression they impose on their own people. The larger anti-war event this month was an overnight vigil
in Washington Square Park Sept. 10-11, sponsored by many pacifist organizations.
There, signs condemned both Israeli and Palestinian killing, as well as the
coming war in Iraq. A speaker from Voices in the Wilderness, a group that defies
U.S. law by delivering humanitarian aid to Iraqis, described the deaths imposed
on Iraq during the last war and by the embargo and continuous bombing ever
since. The War Resisters League, a leading pacifist organization, handed out
little "no war" signs to wear. As News and Letters wrote six months ago in our statement,
"Confronting Permanent War & Terrorism: Why the Anti-War Movement Needs
a Dialectical Perspective," "Never has it become more important to
connect political action with the development of a philosophy of human
liberation." --New York News and Letters Committees |
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